ESA Satellite Shows Sudden Ice Loss In Southern Antarctic Peninsula

ddelmonte tips news that the ESA's CryoSat spacecraft has detected a sharp increase in the rate at which ice is being lost in a previously stable section of Antarctica. In 2009, glaciers at the Southern Antarctic Peninsula began rapidly shedding ice into the ocean, at a rate of roughly 60 cubic kilometers per year (abstract). From the ESA's press release: This makes the region one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise in Antarctica, having added about 300 cubic km of water into the ocean in the past six years. Some glaciers along the coastal expanse are currently lowering by as much as four m each year. Prior to 2009, the 750 km-long Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change. ... The ice loss in the region is so large that it has even caused small changes in Earth’s gravity field, detected by NASA’s GRACE mission. Climate models show that the sudden change cannot be explained by changes in snowfall or air temperature. Instead, the team attributes the rapid ice loss to warming oceans.

Comments

Sudden?

[ArcadeMan]

People have been talking about global warming/climate change/politically-correct-term since the last two decades but some countries just keep their head in the sand. *COUGH*U.S.A.*COUGH*

Re:Sudden?

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Warming is MYTH! A MYTH, I tell you! Glub. Glub. Glub.

Re:Sudden?

[Lumpy]

It's not the country, It's the drooling morons that we have running the country.

Re:Sudden?

[itsenrique]

Why is this necessarily so? In many cases, e get the politicians who's team has the most money.

Re:Sudden?

[jellomizer]

There are many cases where even republicans go on record stating man made climate change.
It is basicly the Oil industry who is trying to keep the doubt about it.
So the politicians Democrat or republican (mostly republican) who come from the Energy Producing states. Will play onto the spew to keep themselves elected.

Politics are not Pro- or Anti-Science. It is weather the science is political useful for them or not. Otherwise they will be happy putting their head in the sand.

Re:Sudden?

[dywolf]

You were saying something about increasing over the past 5 years?
Yeah...no.

http://skepticalscience.com//p...

Re:Sudden?

[MightyMartian]

This is another GLOBAL WARMING hoax!!!!! Ice is always melting!!!!!

Re:Sudden?

[rwa2]

Politics are not Pro- or Anti-Science. It is weather the science is political useful for them or not. Otherwise they will be happy putting their head in the sand.

This. If you know anything about lawyers and law, the first tenet is NEVER ADMIT FAULT. No good can come of it. People might then expect you to pay for damages or whatever.

Environmentalists make the mistake thinking that conservatives are stupid. That is not the case. The only thing they care about is that they will not have to pay for or be part of the solution. Any time you spend trying to convince them otherwise is wasted.

The other bit is that politics is never proactive, always reactionary. No environmental protection or anti-pollution law was ever passed until something was already FUBAR, be it due to the London yellow fog, or smog over LA, holes in the ozone layer, or Chinese urban centers shutting down due to respiratory issues. The politicians will maybe finally get around to doing something substantial about AGW after there's a refugee crises from low-lying areas, like the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Louisiana, Florida, etc. Chances are, they still won't blame AGW, since it'll be sea swell from a hurricane/typhoon that does those population centers in, but at some point they'll get tired of throwing money at those places to rebuild. Fortunately there are already a lot of migrant refugee boats in the Mediterranean and Andaman Sea for other reasons, so we're already slowly building a framework for dealing with these kinds of things.

Re:Sudden?

[garyisabusyguy]

I agree with laziness as being a problem, but I would say that it appears as people being too lazy to get their buts to the polls.

There is a large group of people who do not even bother to vote, with the 2014 election being an example of the lowest voter turnout for America in the past 70 years.
There is a smaller group people who believe the fud they are served up and are motivated to vote because of it.

As a result we saw huge wins for the gop in 2014, which is the largest user of fear driven propaganda to get their base to he polls

If the larger group remains uninvolved the smaller, easily propagandized group (and the propagandists that motivate them) will determine public policy and this country will promote policies that will end up hurting the entire planet

How do you define southern Antarctica?

[damn_registrars]

Being as it is the continent that encompasses the south pole, how do you define what is southern?

Re:How do you define southern Antarctica?

[Sir_Eptishous]

The penguins have confederate flag bumper stickers on their trucks.

Funnel the water somewhere else

[Anonymous Coward]

Build a trench from the ocean to the desert. Let the excess water pool there. Problem solved.

Re:Strangely mixed signals here

[Anonymous Coward]

The earlier submission is not citing NASA's satellite. According to the submission itself, the "original source" is Forbes. The article on Forbes does not have any link to NASA website, he has a link to a graph which shows some data, but does not link to any explanation of this data. (you know, something like a scientific article, or at least the web page of the satellite/project which provide the data, just to know what it represents)

Re:Strangely mixed signals here

[Anonymous Coward]

One of them reports what the actual scientists have concluded from meticulous study of the data, the other reports what a Forbes columnist has concluded from looking at some charts and having a hunch?

Re:Strangely mixed signals here

[MightyMartian]

In psuedo-skeptic world a thousand peer reviewed studies aren't worth a single paid Frank Spencer pro-fossil fuel shill piece in the WSJ.

Re:Haters gonna hate (Any materialized predictions

[serviscope_minor]

Ah, ad-hominems, they prove everything!

No, it's ad-homenim if he says "Mi is an ignorant bigot and therefore his arguments are invalid". otherwise it's just an insult.

Re:Any materialized predictions? (Re:Sudden?)

[riverat1]

I've had the same problem with mi. Apparently his mind is too simple to parse out the comparison in a single link and he rigidly requires responses be presented only in the format he wants.

In response to your post temperatures are still within the uncertainty range on the model projections so it's impossible to say they are wrong.

Re:Any materialized predictions? (Re:Sudden?)

[riverat1]

I'm not going to try again because I've already presented you with this peer reviewed paper that compares IPCC projections to observations for temperature and sea level rise. The fact that you won't accept the format I present it in just shows how you lack intellectual flexibility.